Can I really tell you all I have learned about MLM in one single post?
Highly doubtful! But I can certainly hit upon some of the highlights and can tell you about some pitfalls to avoid.

I have been working a home based Internet business since late 2000 ~ and for about the first 3 years it wasn’t a huge success. I worked with less than fantastic companies, with less than fantastic training and support and made some money because of my *lucky* nature… and skills that I developed along the way.

Because I needed to stay home with my small children, I learned how to build a business using just the Internet and the phone. I learned how to generate my own leads online, and also honed my prospecting and closing skills. Once I aligned myself with a decent company with a good payplan, I worked my way to a very sweet income.

Of course, Network Marketing, or MLM, is traditionally offline direct sales. Often called ‘relationship marketing’ or ‘word of mouth’ marketing, it is the movement of product through the distributors to their sphere of influence. With most companies you can get started for under $1000, and you have a truly unlimited income potential.

Sounds fantastic, right? Well, it should be. But there are some pitfalls to avoid, and some advice I can give you to keep in mind as you consider investing in a MLM company.

Quality Products in Demand:
First and foremost, since money is made from the sale of ‘product’, you must ask yourself if the products would be bought and sold if there was no money making opportunity available? In other words, do you feel you would be able to acquire CUSTOMERS for the products?
Are they of a superior quality, and priced at least somewhat competitively?
If you think for a minute that you are only buying them to make money, and will sell only to people that want to make money and so on… walk away.
There absolutely should be product focus, and customer acquisition should be taught and promoted within the company.
If you choose a company with excellent products, you’ll be able to make money all day long with customers. Solid, residual income from happy customers who will give you referrals all day long!

Compensation Plan:
Payplan is also incredibly important. Unless you have been around the block a few times you won’t know what makes a good payplan. The best you can do is take a look at a few similar companies and compare their compensation plan. Which is going to pay you the most money for your work?

Marketing system:
If your Network Marketing company knows something about MARKETING, you will make a whole lot more money with less work!

Do they have an online system that you can direct your prospects to? It makes no difference if your prospect came from a Chamber meeting business card exchange, an ad in the paper, or a pay per click ad on Google. They must enter their name, email and phone on a capture page and be taken to a presentation. An email series should them followup with them automatically on your behalf. Of course you will call them ASAP too-
Does the company provide the marketing system for you, or will that be an additional expense?

Professionalism:
What is the corporate culture like? Attend conference calls, local meetings, webinars, etc. Are the founders, the CEO and their top representatives on the calls behaving with professionalism? You might be surprised at how many do not. I have been on some horrible calls, and even worse meetings. Be very careful who you align yourself with!

Training:
Your sponsor will tell you ‘full training and support is provided’. Thats the nature of MLM. The sponsors do the training of those they enroll. But how is this done? Is there a systematic method to training you so that you will know exactly what you need to do to put cash in your hand that week? Or is it just ‘get some customers or enroll somebody and you’ll get paid’. Is your sponsor qualified to train you? If not, who do you have access to that IS?
The best case scenario is that corporate has a training program in place and you can plug your new people into it immediately. Thats how you can truly leverage your time. Your job then isn’t so much to train, but to develop leadership in yourself and others.

Finally… we werent born Network Marketers, but thankfully this profession has come into its own and there are many excellent, professional trainers we can and should ‘plug into’.
Always be a student, and know that each experience, whether its a win or a ‘failure’ is part of your marketers education.

Stay consistent, be persistent, and make your fortune in MLM.

Wishing you life’s best,
Melanie Milletics

Integrate Internet Marketing and Relationship Marketing and you will be unusually successful in your MLM. Ignoring “Old School” methods and only embracing the “New School” is simply foolish.

I was amused to learn the words “Web 2.0″ and then later, “Attraction Marketing” . As a home based business owner who built my business using the Internet and the phone, I had been using those methods to build my business long before there were labels attached.  In fact, the coining of them was such a non-event for me that I missed an opportunity to corner those SEO terms – bummer!  The term “Attraction Marketing” is absolutely huge now and the experts abound!

Network Marketers across the world are embracing the “New School” way of building an MLM business by tapping into the millions of prospects who are online looking for ways to become financially free.  They are learning how to set up their blogs, build capture pages and how to market those sites using social media like twitter and facebook, search engine optimization and video marketing. It’s a frenzy of learning and application.  The content going up is staggering!

We’ve really done a good job of training up the competition

Now, I don’t really believe that there is scarcity of prospects – but there is scarcity of attention spans. And if all the “New School” Network Marketers are out there teaching “Attraction Marketing“, and posing as experts… where does that leave YOU?  If you are trying to claim your spot on the net, how will you stand out? How will you generate a lead in an environment where everyone is standing up and yelling ‘pick me, pick me’ ?

I don’t know man, I just don’t know…
maybe we’ll have to go back to the “Old School” methods of prospecting…

What are the ‘Old School’ methods, really? Does it mean making a list of your friends and family and expecting them all to be your business partners? That each and every one of them is just waiting to be an entrepreneur?  Or how about standing at the mall and accosting strangers about making extra money, doing just what you are doing?  No way, you say – that’s how you end up in the NFL. “No friends left” after you have unprofessionally approached them all with something that they weren’t asking for.

Is that really what is meant by “Old School” networking? Of course it isn’t, but its what you will hear from those who will tell you that the ‘Old School’ methods of building a MLM business are dead. They will make the offline methods sound stupid and downright degrading.  They will make it sound like you’d be a fool to follow the advice of the MLM millionaires who all built their business offline because ‘things are different now’.

Come on, do you really think things are THAT different? People are still people, and this is still a word of mouth business.

So what does “Old School” really mean, and why should you have respect for the ‘Old School” masters, instead of disdain for the term?
Its Relationship Marketing at its best.  It is listening for the needs of people and giving them an option to fill those needs. It’s connecting with people in your community who are looking for what you have to offer.

It was never, and never will be about chasing your friends and family, people!

Right now, there are people all over the world making huge money in MLM building OFFLINE, using “Old School” methods.
Right now, people are collecting six figure checks.

Are you?

If not, perhaps its time you took a look at expanding your skill set to include offline methods of building your business.
If you are really an entrepreneur with a product or service that the market is asking for – then you should have no trouble connecting with people who have a need for what you offer.

I’m an Internet Network Marketer and have been building my business online for 8 years. I generate my own leads and call my prospects after they have been exposed to the business through an online presentation. I have mad phone skills and people close themselves on my opportunity all the time.

However, I take every opportunity to look people in the eye and hand them my business card. Their attention to my website is far more valuable than the thousands of clicks I will get to this blog post. They are far more likely to take action to either become a customer, or even a distributor. Why? Because I looked them in the eye and professionally introduced what I do. I heard their need and I addressed it. They can see that I am genuine, am not at all a slimy salesperson, and if they have a desire to move forward, its on them.

My friends and family know what I do – and they are my CUSTOMERS. They aren’t entrepreneurs, and I wouldn’t prospect them for the business opportunity. But they do BUY MY STUFF!

If you are a closet entrepreneur, you are missing a huge profit zone. Get over it already and be the professional you strive to be. Introduce your product or service and let everyone know what you do.  Would a paycheck for doing so really be so bad?

There is so much more to this- pages and pages worth. But you really must know that all of the internet marketing prowess in the world is not going to make you residual millions in MLM. You simply must learn the skills of Relationship Marketing.  Your upline leader making 6 or 7 figures can tell you how to build a huge business. Listen!

By all means, learn and understand Attraction Marketing and apply those methods of lead generation. But what the heck are you going to say to those wonderful people who have asked you for more information?
Learning WordPress won’t help you with the one thing that will earn you a check – closing the prospect!

I guarantee that if you work on your offline prospecting and phone prospecting that you’ll make more money. Unless you are incredibly poorly suited for this profession, you can’t go wrong when you increase your skill set in those areas.

You can get generic Relationship Marketing training from Dani Johnson or Todd Falcone. These 2 are the real deal. I plug into the expert training from both of these MLM coaches all the time. Both of them clearly know that you must hone your prospecting and closing skill set, no matter how you generate a lead. They can both teach you how to generate endless leads offline, expose them to the opportunity, follow-up, close, duplicate, and ultimately lead a team.  And if you are generating leads online – its the same skill set! These MLM coaches know how to combine the Old School with the New School Attraction Marketing methods – and guess what? They are unusually successful!